


Fire Sale

by beta_19



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Gen, Gore, Happy ending sorta, Serial Killer, So Much Stuttering, gintoki23, shared AUs, so many dead Ricks, stanchez-sloppy-seconds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 01:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9855542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beta_19/pseuds/beta_19
Summary: Suffice to say it, this one was a mess. There were guts on the ceiling, splashed all across the walls, and everything on the floor was conveniently draining towards that one dip in the concrete on the right side of the garage. The garage door couldn’t fully retract because of the head-shaped dent in it.“This is an ADBCI all right. Explosive decomp,” Richard sighed, leaning back slightly to take in the full view of the scene. “W-would’ve been fine if he’d— if he’d just left the garage door open.”Or: there's a fire sale on dead Ricks.But who's buying





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> MEGA THANKS to [@stanchez-sloppy-seconds](http://archiveofourown.org/users/stanchezsloppyseconds) for lending me the use of her excellent [Interdimensional Janitor Ricks](http://stanchez-sloppy-seconds.tumblr.com/post/156922377316/oh-look-its-the-janitor-nerds-again-but-old-fart)...!
> 
> And thanks to the fandom for making my shit relevant, lol.

Suffice to say it, this one was a mess. There were guts on the ceiling, splashed all across the walls, and everything on the floor was conveniently draining towards that one dip in the concrete on the right side of the garage. The garage door couldn't fully retract because of the head-shaped dent in it.

“This is an ADBCI all right. Explosive decomp,” Richard sighed, leaning back slightly to take in the full view of the scene. “W-would've been fine if he’d— if he’d just left the garage door open.”

“What, a-and get blown out across the street?” Ricardo snorted as he lugged in the portable tool deck. “Yeah, I’m not about to go around picking teeth off the sidewalk, no-no thanks.”

“No, but he would've have a-a-a better chance of, of surviving,” Richard scoffed. “Maybe with all his shit broken but, y’know, that’s still an easy fix.”

“Maybe.” Ricardo abandoned the deck to hunt for the garden hose. It was in the usual spot. “I wouldn't wanna see the Rick that survived this one. Yeesh.”

Whatever this particular Rick had been working with, there was no sign of it. Presumably it was somewhere among the debris inside the Smith family garage, ripped to shrapnel or melted into a small hole. But after Ricardo finished hosing the former Rick’s mesentery off the rafters, and after Richard made short work of the viscera off the rest of the garage, for some reason the faulty device just wasn't there.

Richard frowned. The clean up job had taken several hours, and if anything Richard was meticulous about his work. The lack of parts, broken or otherwise, worried him.

“The murder weapon isn't here,” he finally declared after checking the contents of his bloody vacuum. “Ive got teeth, bone shards, uhh, some-some parts for a fake hip, but there’s nothing here that says broken pressure seal. Not even-a a goddamn bolt or screw.”

“Mebbe it decomped itself out of existence,” Ricardo said with a shrug. He tossed a shoe into the open cooler on the cart.

Richard snorted. “You know that doesn't happen,” he sniffed. “I don’t think this death was an accident at all.”

“Y’don’t say?”

“Perhaps a depressurization ray…” Richard continued to frown at the wet, sticky contents of the capture chamber of his blood vac.

“Let forensics handle it.” Ricardo shrugged again. “C-c’mon, we've been here all day. I need, like. Eight showers.”

Undeterred, Richard flapped a hand dismissively at him. “This is the third one in two weeks,” he muttered, sealing the vacuum chamber hatch again. “I think we’ve got a serial killer.”

That caught Ricardo’s attention immediately. “Dude, seriously?” His eyes were alight with interest, suddenly. _“Again?”_

“It’s quite possible. Think about it!” Richard began ticking the numbers off his gore-smeared gloved fingers. “Last-last week’s job at the warehouse on Corinth-530, remember that? The Rick there supposedly swallowed a frag grenade. Kablooey, shit everywhere. A-and then last Tuesday? Death by Giant Lesser Norflax at the Praxian zoo? Rick-bits everywhere in the specimen lab.”

It was Ricardo’s turn to frown thoughtfully now. “Even-even if the, the M.O. isn't the same, the uh, the results all kinda match, I guess?”

“Yeah. And-and explosive decomp usually leaves a, a fine mist behind. But this?” Richard stuck a gloved hand out to the now clean, if slightly damp, garage area. “A bit chunky for decomp, don’t you think?”

“Y-yeah, that’s what I said.”

For a brief moment both Ricks turned to look at each other quizzically to see who had spoken. Then automatically they turned their heads simultaneously to see a Morty standing in the garage doorway leading back into the house. The Morty raised a hesitant hand and waved a little.

“Th-thanks for… for helping us clean up,” the Morty quavered, his gaze darting between the two different-looking versions of his grandpa. “That whole thing with, uh, with sending Mom and Dad away on a cruise was, uh, a-a good idea.”

“Oh uh, hey, kid,” Ricardo said, blinking owlishly at the boy.

“Where’s your sister?” Richard asked, brows knitting with concern.

“N-no Summer in this timeline,” said Morty, looking a little crestfallen.

“Oh. Bummer. Welp, we’re done here.” Ricardo snapped the lid back onto the cooler full of body parts.

But Richard was a little keener than his fellow rockabilly Rick. “What do you mean, ‘that’s what you said’?” he quizzed the Morty in the doorway.

The Morty stepped away from the door frame. He was no different from any other Morty in the plethora of realities where he existed — short, skinny, twelve, yellow shirt, jeans, anxious, a little sweaty. The only thing setting him apart was the presence of a red baseball cap on his head. 

“A-a couple Citadel Ricks came by before you guys did, and uh, explained some stuff?” he mumbled uncertainly, tapping two fingers together. “And, and they said explosive decompression too, but I said it was a guy with a de-decompression ray, but-but they kinda ignored me ‘cause my mom was crying…”

The thought of Beth weeping on the couch while two stern guard-Ricks relayed the details of the untimely death of her father made Richard narrow his eyes a little. Ricks were soft for Beths, regardless of timeline. Of course they would have missed some details with that kind of distraction.

“A-anyway, um, if you could… tell someone at the, the Citadel about the guy with the exploding death ray, I’d, um, I’d super appreciate it, if… if that’s okay?” Morty said, his pleading gaze on Richard, who was listening.

“Uh. Sure, Morty.” Richard gave the kid a sympathetic frown. “You gonna be all right here by yourself til your parents get back?”

Morty hesitated for a moment, feet shifting in one spot. “Can I come with you?” he finally asked.

“Nooo way, nope, _de ninguna manera_ ,” Ricardo said from the other side of the garage. “No charity cases, we've got another job lined up, like… _cinco_ hours ago.”

“I-I just need a ride to the Citadel, that’s all!” Morty protested.

“Not a taxi service either,” Ricardo sniffed. “Sorry, pal.”

“I-I've got a bribe!”

Both Richard and Ricardo stared as Morty somehow whipped out a small, innocuous-looking device from behind his back. 

Most Ricks recognized the thing. Curiously small, about the size of a fancy paperweight, it was a tiny, inky-black swirl of stars captured within an iridescent bubble, fixed onto a heavy-bottomed pedestal to keep it from rolling.

Richard’s eyes popped open at the sight of it. “Why,” he began incredulously, “do you even have that…?!

Morty held it out to him. “It’s yours if you drop me off at the Citadel!” he blurted out, eyes large, his tone desperate.

“Ohhh hell no,” Ricardo said, raising his hands defensively in front of himself. “Get that thing away from me.”

“I should confiscate that on principle,” Richard huffed, snatching the little globe from Morty’s hands. “How-how did you even get this? These things don’t exactly traverse portal to portal very well.”

“I-it’s the casing!” Morty stammered, jerking his hands away. “It-it does something, I dunno, makes it portable! My grandp— my Rick made it but then... but then zombies,” he mumbled, trailing off defeatedly. 

“Zombies? You mean this…” Ricardo pointed down at the cooler full of body parts, “this isn't your original Rick?”

Morty said nothing, and merely toed the now bleach-cleaned concrete floor with a downcast look on his face.

“Aw geez, that’s rough,” Ricardo sighed. “Y-you sure you don’t wanna stay here with your family instead? I mean, chances are they’re no different from your original family.”

“I…” Morty began, but immediately shut his mouth. 

“This belongs in a fucking evidence locker,” Richard said in the meantime, his mouth drawn into a hard line as he shoved the glittering globe into his coat pocket. “We can drop you off at the Citadel, but uhh you’re gonna hafta find someone else to portal you back to this dimension later.”

Wordlessly Morty nodded.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morty visits the Archives at the Citadel of Ricks, and reflects on the past...
> 
> Also, humble thanks to [@gintoki23](http://beta-19.tumblr.com/post/154774405863/gintoki23-small-style-practice-for-beta-19s) for lending me her dignified Rick C-784, aka [Librarian Rick!](http://gintoki23.tumblr.com/post/149377509054/post-pocket-mortys-series-morticia-previous) :D

As the two Janitor Ricks had guessed, this was not Morty’s first rodeo at the Citadel. As soon as they shuffled through the portal, Morty thanked the pair and made a bee-line for the Archives behind city hall. 

The portable dimensional tear Morty had offered up to Richard was not actually anything that his first Rick had tinkered with in the past. It was something that Morty’s third Rick had gotten from some rummage sale an eon ago, that eventually came to rest as a mere trinket on the shelf in the garage. Also, Morty was reluctant to tell anyone, especially other Ricks, just how many Ricks he’d gone through in such a short amount of time.

Morty set his jaw as he paced across the main plaza. Multitudes of matching Ricks and their prerequisite Mortys strolled casually about, some on business, others not. Morty — this narrative’s Morty — ignored them all as he focused on the sense of dread that made his guts knot up unpleasantly. 

_This is the third one in two weeks. I think we've got a serial killer,_ Richard had said.

His heart hammered in his chest. He hoped against all reason that his hunch was wrong, because if it wasn't, he had a giant conspiracy on his hands and Morty didn't know what he was going to do with a real conspiracy.

The Archives were managed by a Rick known as C-784, or the Librarian. Morty didn't know him very well, but he had visited him once for some errand, and somehow Morty just remembered who he was. Perhaps it was something to do with the way this Rick handled detail — he wore bifocals for reading small print and just seemed way more organized than any of the Ricks Morty had spent time with, which was saying a lot about Ricks in general. Either way, Morty appreciated Librarian Rick’s quiet, studious manner, even though the illusion of the scholarly grandfather was usually ruined the second he opened his mouth.

“Whaddya want,” Librarian Rick grunted, without looking up from the datapad he was currently reading. He was leaned far back in his seat with this feet up on the front desk. Small robots puttered along in the background between the stacks, shelving and reshelving.

“Um,” said Morty, who hesitated for a moment to gather his thoughts first. “Uh, I’m uh, I’m looking for… uh… obituaries…?”

“Obits are in the next building,” said Librarian Rick, pointing off somewhere to his left. “You know the designation of the Rick you’re looking for?”

“Uh. Uh, yeah,” Morty replied with an emphatic nod, even if the Librarian wasn't looking. “I’ll, um. I’ll go there now.”

“Waaaait.” There was a creak as the Librarian leaned forward and slid his feet off the desk. He leaned aside and pushed a clipboard towards the corner of the desk. “Ya gotta sign in.”

“Oh, okay.” Morty picked up the pen on the clipboard and scribbled his name and dimension code onto the sheet. _Morty Smith, C-883. 4pm Standard Citadel Time._

Only after he’d signed in did the Librarian wave him off. Morty practically jogged down the hallway.

At the end of the connecting corridor were more stacks, aisles upon aisles of server racks and bundled cables reaching right up towards the vaulted ceiling. The AC in here ran high, whirring loudly from vents in the walls, and Morty puffed a bit in the cold as he made his way towards the search terminal. After logging in with his code designation and retina scan to confirm that he was indeed C-883, the terminal UI loaded up a directory screen with a dialogue box. 

Morty punched in the codes of all the Ricks he’d grown up with over the past two years: C-991, C-675, and the latest whom Morty had the misfortune of seeing painted all over the garage, C-402. He didn’t need to find Rick C-883’s file. That one Morty was certain was not some strange coincidence. 

[image: Scrappy Morty with Rick C-883](http://beta-19.tumblr.com/post/153843995503/scrappy-morty-and-his-original-rick-having-just)

The three profiles opened up in the form of holography windows projected by the terminal. Each file contained the necessary details per Rick — deviations in height, weight, medical conditions, former CVs, education, specialties, and more importantly, the date, location, and manner of death.

After the sad demise of his original Rick, Morty C-883 had been assigned to a rather unique backwater Rick called Arctic Naturalist Rick. For some reason this Rick had really taken to examining cold-weather fauna, presumably as an initiative to discover a more reliable method for developing more efficient cryostasis or cryo-therapy. Morty disliked having to live in the more remote polar regions of the world, but being free of the public school system allowed Morty to experience more hands-on learning while out in the field. However, having survived seven months with this eccentric Rick, Morty was unable to witness the death of this Rick. It had happened suddenly: one second Rick was poking at a small ice floe to test its thickness, and by the time Morty turned back around, a giant leopard seal had dragged his Rick off into the icy water and down into a bloody, dark doom beneath the ice. 

[ image: Scrappy Morty with Rick C-991](http://beta-19.tumblr.com/post/153161964853/kinda-posting-these-out-of-order-this-is-the)

For a long time Morty had missed C-991. This Rick had been oddly cheerful about his work, and being out of close proximity of humans made him friendlier. Morty didn’t miss the cold weather, though.

Shortly after the end of his second Rick, Morty was offered a chance to live with a third Rick, a perfectly normal suburban, drunk version of his grandpa, just like his original Rick, only not dead. Morty had enjoyed his time with C-675 too — there had been nothing glaringly different about this Rick, other than this Rick’s original Morty having been lost to one of their many excursions off-planet. Things had been awkward at first, but just as Morty began warming up to this new--this same Rick, a well-aimed laser-harpoon managed to end C-675 in a single bolt, right in the back and out through his chest, during an escape from the Carpalian rebels on Carpa Lamma Dos in the Cygnus system.

[image: Scrappy Morty Rick C-675](http://beta-19.tumblr.com/post/153207590593/this-is-what-happened-to-scrappy-mortys-third)

Again Morty was crushed by the death of yet another well-meaning Rick. Once was happenstance, twice was coincidence, and thrice was a pattern. The Ricks at the Placement Centre tried to reassure Morty that this sort of thing happened all the time. Mortys weren’t the only people to suffer in the care of Ricks; Ricks too died just as often.

However, while Morty certainly believed that bad luck could happen to him as well as anyone else, there was one thing Morty left out of his debriefing with the Citadel Guard. In his defense he was unaware of the coincidence until just now, this very moment.

In the two— now three deaths Morty felt semi-responsible for, each of the Ricks in his company had been distracted by something odd. C-991 failed to notice the massive leopard seal looming up beneath the ice because he had been looking at something else. Morty had seen it too, but only briefly, because in the next second his Rick was being mauled death. The resulting trauma caused Morty to forget about the odd detail.

Rick C-675 was usually much better at taking on multiple opponents, especially while on the run, but again something odd had distracted him long enough for him to hesitate in mid-escape. Morty had noticed it first — a kind of weird, hunched-over lump that looked out of place — but again, this detail had been forgotten in light of the traumatic death of yet another grandpa.

By then, Morty was now sincerely afraid of getting to know his next Rick too well, but time played its part and after about a year, Morty felt it was safe to open up a little, given his past. But the second Morty was feeling confident about something, which was rare, fate had it in for him yet again. This time the oddity was out in the yard, and it was not a lump but a full silhouette — humanoid — but before Morty could nervously seek Rick out in the garage to tell him about it, there was a high-pitched whine and a low-frequency _pompf_ before the door juddered from the impact of high-velocity guts splashing up against the other side. 

Morty didn't know what was going to happen to his parents — well, the C-402 versions of them — but it didn't feel right to stay with them, not without Rick. What Morty didn’t tell the cleanup crew was that the C-402 universe never had a Summer… or a Morty, either.

He hoped his mom and dad in that dimension would be okay after the Citadel Guards did their mind-zappy thing to make them forget. It was the kinder option. Morty missed his parents already.

Morty swallowed hard as he began checking each of the three documents for date of death. C-991 was two years ago, roughly… C-675 was a year and five months…. And his most recent Rick, C-402, was yesterday. 

He stared hard at the numbers, and then deflated immediately. Morty was uncertain of what he was looking for, never mind what he had hoped to find. Because he hadn't reported the odd detail per death, there was nothing unusual noted on their obituary profiles.

Unable to discover any kind of obvious link, Morty stared forlornly at the obituaries, shoulders slumped. Morty was better at spontaneous serendipity, but putting together unrelated items into brand new configurations was more Rick’s territory. Without a Rick to help him figure out the bigger picture, Morty felt lost, stupid. He felt more like an idiot than ever before.

After one last, silent goodbye to the Ricks of his past, Morty just left the records up where they were, glowing in the dim lighting of the Obituary server banks.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morty experiences culture shock.

In less than two weeks, Morty C-883 was finally assigned to a new Rick. There was nothing odd or unique about Rick C-405 other than some small decision made long ago that hardly mattered now; he was otherwise identical to C-402 in appearance and attitude.

Having cycled through the Citadel so many times, Morty had long since gotten over the John Malkovich-esque feeling of being in a large room full of other Mortys. Some of the newbs were sweating and fidgeting nervously by themselves, while others recognized the situation and merely looked resigned to their fate. Most of them gave Morty— this narrative’s Morty — a slightly longer glance than usual.

“What’s with him?” one asked another.

“W-whaddya mean?”

“He’s…” The other Morty paused uncertainly. “He’s wearing a _hat_.”

A low hush rippled throughout the sea of yellow shirts. Morty, now considered ‘Hat Morty’, tried not to look as self-conscious as he felt.

It was a weather-stained, rose-coloured ballcap. Once upon a time it was red, but Morty wore it so often that it had acquired the quality of Morty himself — worn and tired. Reluctantly he approached the Placement Centre front desk to be scanned and verified, and after that a Service Morty led him to a reception room where his Rick awaited.

“I-I never thought I’d… ever have to come here,” Rick C-405 muttered to himself, looking a little awkward. He gave Hat Morty a hesitant look. “Is that…? Is he?”

“Rick C-405, this is your assigned Morty,” the Service Morty said. “Your bio-print here, please.”

With a mixed expression, C-405 pressed his thumb against the presented datapad, and then the Service Morty left them alone. 

“I’m from C-883,” Hat Morty said immediately.

“Oh yeah? Are things weird where you come from?” Rick asked.

“Kinda. Everybody’s dead.” Hat Morty shrugged. “Including my first Rick.”

“Aw, geez. Tough break, kid. Uh. Full disclosure here, my Morty got hit by a dinosaur.”

“Can we just go home now?” Hat Morty rubbed his arm and gave Rick a sad, weary look.

“Yeah. Yeah, sure, buddy.”

Rick shot a portal at the nearest wall, and he let Morty step through it first. 

————————————————

Home was, of course, no different than it had been with C-402. Everything was the same, including the levels of dust on the shelves, the same couch stains, even the same clothes left in the hamper from when Morty last saw it. Though he had already lived through several Ricks, it always made him feel like throwing up and crying, and he didn't know why. Everything was still there, and in a way, would always be there, so long as the finite curve supplied as many opportunities to try again.

Fortunately, this Rick was as sympathetic as most Ricks could be. Morty went straight to his room while Rick retreated to the garage, each of them dreading the dinner theatre that would have to take place in an effort to fool Summer, Beth, and Jerry of this dimension. Fortunately that never happened: Beth was running late so Jerry made dinner, burnt it, and then finally just made ramen noodles for everyone. Morty slurped his noodles quickly, muttered something about homework, and fled as fast as he could.

“Where did Morty get that hat?” Jerry asked no one in particular after Morty escaped.

Upstairs, Morty sat on his bed with his back to the wall, and drew his knees up to his chest. His things had been delivered earlier, not that he had much: everything in the bedroom was exactly the same anyway, but he had some mementos from his previous dimensions that he kept for sentimental reasons. 

The first was the scarf. It wasn't even a scarf so much as a long scrap of white cotton twill, now stained grey and brown by months of weather. The stains were ugly but the cloth was clean at least, having gone through multiple machine washes in the past. 

The second was from a wild penguin that his second Rick would feed every now and then, when it visited their camp out on the polar caps of northern Spoos. The penguin was tame and friendly, and would come to molt safely under their watch. Morty kept one of the claws left behind.

Morty didn't have anything from his third Rick. He’d forgotten to ask the Interdimensional Janitor for a souvenir, but then again, Morty didn't want to recall the spatter of lumpy gristle tinting the overhead garage lights from white to red.

Rick number four. Rick C-405. Morty left the bed long enough to fetch his scarf and wrap it around himself, and he wore the claw on a strip of leather around his neck. Then he went back to curling back up on the bed so he could stare at the clock.

8 pm. Sleep would be a long time coming, if at all.

At 8:02pm, there came a knock on the door before it suddenly opened. 

“Morty,” Rick belched as he casually stepped in. “Are you moping in here?”

“No,” Morty mumbled. “Yes.”

“Okay. I thought so.” The mattress depressed a little as Rick sat on the end of it. “I thought we should, uh. Talk. About stuff.”

“Okay.” Morty let himself look up from his toes up at Rick.

Identical. No, not just identical; exactly the same. Exactly him.

“This isn't my first time,” Morty said, voice muffled by the grungy grey scarf wrapped around his face and shoulders.

“Gross. I mean, not how I would've worded it,” Rick sighed, shifting slightly so he could fold a knee onto the bed, sitting a little sideways so he could talk to Morty a little easier from where Morty was huddled against the wall.

“Hey, uh. Don’t be sad, lil buddy. It’s me! I’m here! I didn't die from— from whatever fuckup that killed your last Rick! I’m still your grandpa, Morty. I’m right here.”

“I know,” Morty said, his voice hitching a little, unintentionally.

“Look, I…y- you want me to say everything’s gonna be okay? ‘Cause… ‘cause, y’know, it’s not. No one can guarantee that. I don’t make promises I-I-I can’t keep, so, so like, if you’re wanting some-some kinda pep talk type deal, y-you’re not gonna get it. Not from me, anyway.”

“I know…”

“But I’m alive, Morty. That’s what you’re thinking about, right? C’mere. C’mere, and touch my hand. C’mon, just— just take my hand. I washed it first, I can promise you that.”

Morty stared at Rick over the edge of his scungy scarf. His throat felt tight, and he was afraid that anything coming out of his mouth would end up mangled and unintelligible, so he said nothing.

Rick had to take Morty’s hand for him and slap it onto his own, his soft little palm down on the warm, loose, old-man skin stretched over the ridges of his tendons and knuckles.

“Ya see? Look, I’m fine! I’m all— I’m warm and not dead. So stop worrying, Morty. C’mon. It’s not bad! See? See, look!”

Morty watched as Rick clasped his little hand. Long, bony fingers closed over his own in a tight squeeze, and Morty could feel the slight tremor of Rick’s grip. Rick was nervous too.

“It’s okay, buddy. We’re still Rick and Morty forever. And ever and ever,” said Rick.

Morty’s throat tightened up and his face grew hot as his eyes brimmed. 

“I—” he began, his voice cracking. “I-I-I dunno, Rick, I mean, I mean— geez, I just saw you die, like, f-four times, a-a-and each time after I-I always get a new— a new Rick, a-and, I-I dunno what’s real anymore, ‘c-cause my family is the same every time, and, and, I dunno if I can, I can think that-that nothing ever changes ‘cause it does, i-in weird little ways, and I don’t find out how weird until— until much later, l-like there’s sometimes a different president, o-or green lights are now red and, a-a-and sometimes people walk their cats instead of dogs, though I guess some people walk their cats anyway, and I can’t, I-I can’t sleep at night—”

His vision blurred as tears spilled over onto his face, soaking into his grimy scarf, and his sinuses filled up the more he said until he was snuffling and hiccuping. 

“I don’t wanna— I’m so tired,” he wailed, burying his face into his scarf. It smelled like fabric softener instead of Rick. “I’m so tired, Rick! I hate watching you die all the time, it’s not fair, it’s so not fair, I mean, what happens to my family when I’m gone? When _you’re_ gone?! W-what happens to my mom after she finds out her dad died? I don’t know! I don’t know, a-and it keeps me up at night, ‘cause I always have to remember what’s different about this universe, or the next—”

As Morty continued rambling, Rick remained quiet though his eyes grew wide. He opened his mouth once or twice, but thought the better of it — he knew words would fail him.

So rather than ruin the moment by trying to console him, all Rick did was climb up onto the bed to sit next to Morty with his back against the wall. Morty’s face was still jammed into his forearms, so Rick made a few awkward attempts to hug him before finally settling on wrapping his long noodley arms around the boy and pulling him in close. 

Morty cried and cried. Rick patted him on the head and rubbed his back until he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaagh so much CRYING
> 
> Also, to amend confusion: 'Hat' Morty is Scrappy Morty. He doesn't get called 'Scrappy' until way later.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens! Now the Citadel Guard is being dragged into this.
> 
> Now starring that one Rick with the accent...

The next few months were nice. Morty let himself get distracted by school, and every now and then he could be lulled into a sense of warm familiarity when he thought about how Jessica was probably the same, too. Unfortunately this meant Brad was also the same, but Morty felt grateful for that, somehow.

Home life was also nice. Beth was happy and Jerry was still pathetic, and Summer was still as glib as ever, as teenagers were wont to be. Everyone remembered Snuffles the same way he did.

And Rick finally broke the ice when, after a couple weeks, he dragged Morty out for a run out to Blipz and Chitz. 

Things were finally feeling normal again, or at least, as normal as they were before the zombies and the snow and the greasy innards painting the garage floor.

Rick C-405 was also very much the same. He was too laissez-faire about some things, obsessive about others, and oscillated rapidly between depression and mania. He invented stuff, drank a lot, and still dragged Morty out of bed in the middle of the night on drug runs or to run weird galactic errands. He was still the smartest, fastest, strongest, most mercurial man Morty knew.

Overall, Morty allowed himself to be happy, but the threat always lingered: when would the other shoe drop? And how?

“Rick,” he said one day, while returning from a viewing of Dogcopter via spaceship, “I… I gotta tell you something.”

“If you ruin this film with a shitty punchline, Morty, I’ll end you,” said Rick.

“No!” Morty exclaimed, “no, not that! It was good, I just wasn't expecting the, uh— n-nevermind…”

“Out with it,” Rick warned.

Morty fidgeted. “I… there’s something— it’s weird.”

“Yeah, so what else is new.”

“N-no, I mean… it’s really weird, Rick! It has to do with my— with my other Ricks. My previous ones.”

“Okay?”

“Before they died, I— I was always there. But I never saw it happen, because of— um, how do I put it, uhh… I don’t know how, uhh. Uhhh.”

Rick side-eyed him. Morty was looking more fidgety than normal.

“Just say it. Jesus, Morty.”

“I saw something weird!” Morty blurted out. “I saw a— I think I saw the thing that killed all my Ricks!”

“Oh yeah? Then what did it look like?” Rick’s suspicion was normal, typical Rick skepticism.

Morty gulped. “It looked like a person,” he said, eyes wide. He stared at his warped reflection in the convex curve of the canopy dome. “It… it looked like me!”

Silence. The faint thrum of the spaceship’s operations filled the gap of quiet.

“Are you—” Rick began. “Are you fucking serious?”

“It looked like me!” Morty panted, as panic began creeping into his tone. “I-I mean— with my hat and everything. I think… there’s another Morty that’s going around and, and killing Ricks.”

“Aw shit,” Rick groaned. “Not _again._ ”

————————————————

The Ricks manning the Citadel Guard station were nonplussed.

“Pics or it didn't happen,” said a Guard Rick, glowering at C-405 and Morty.

“That’s bullshit,” C-405 scoffed, slamming his hands down onto the counter. “Don’t be stupid. Don’t you remember the last time this shit happened? Yeah? That huuuuge influx of Rickless Mortys being shuffled off back home? You want this shit happening again?!”

“Calm the fuck down.” The Guard Rick at the front desk raised a gloved hand. “As much as I’d like to find out what’s going on, even you know there’s gotta be some evidence other than mere testimony…. Especially from a Morty.”

“Don’t you have a Morty of your own?”

“No.”

“Even so, even you know that Mortys are occasionally right.”

“Exactly what percentile are we talking about here?”

“What is going on?”

The third voice, while being a Rick, had a strange accent. The new Guard Rick approaching C-405 and Morty looked like the other Guards, save for the inclusion of an official-looking, swank-ass hat.

“Uhh, we’ve got some witnesses here to a murder,” the front desk Guard said.

“A witness,’ C-405 emphasized.

“Serial murders,” Morty chimed in. “Like, three of ‘em.”

“Oh, so you’ve already decided on a triple homicide?” the new Guard Rick intoned, giving C-405 and his Morty a discerning look. “Which one of you is the witness.”

Morty meekly raised a hand. “Uh, I am?”

“Okay. I’ll hear you out. Come with me.” The Rick officer waved for Morty to accompany, but then held a hand up. “Ah-ah. Not you.”

“That’s my Morty!” C-405 protested. “I-I’m his legal guardian, I gotta be there if you’re-you’re gonna question him!”

“We are all Morty’s legal guardian,” the Officer said, boredly. “Just chill out here in the lobby. It won’t take long.”

“Yeah right,” C-405 snorted, but stayed put as the Officer escorted Morty further into the station.

Morty glanced over his shoulder as he was ushered away. His Rick looked irritated rather than worried. Somehow, that made Morty feel better.

As it turned out, there was no interrogation room. All the Officer Rick did was take him to his own office, where he took up his place behind a broad glass desk with an inset computer terminal and virtual keyboard. Morty was asked to be seated in one of two smaller chairs set in front of it.

“So tell me your version,” the Officer said, leaning back in his seat. “Be as detailed as you can.”

Morty glanced around at the office first. There were books and documents filed on shelves all along the walls, and various credentials framed beside them, in different languages, all alien. The desk itself had an In and Out tray, and the wire trash bin beneath the desk was scrupulously empty. There was a plaque on the desk that read ‘C-7104’ on it.

“Uhh, well…” Automatically Morty dropped his gaze down to his lap, where he began fretting and wringing his hands nervously. “I’m Morty C-883, and I've gone through fo— three Ricks now…”

The Officer Rick wasn't even taking notes, but he looked like he was paying attention.

“And, aside from my-my first Rick,” Morty gulped, “I-I think all the— my last two Ricks kinda… died suspiciously?” He lifted his gaze to meet the Officer’s stony glare. “Like… they died kinda… by accident, but each time they-they died, I saw something weird, and… and I dunno what to think of it, I mean, I need your help to figure out what I saw, Rick, ‘cause I’m not--I’m not smart enough, I’m not smart like you…”

“Okay, so what was this weird thing you saw?” the Officer asked.

While Morty continued to explain the strange circumstances, inwardly he could not place the Officer’s Rick’s accent. All Morty could guess at was that he was European, possibly?

After hearing Morty’s testimony, the Officer Rick leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers like a Bond villain. 

“So what do you think about this so-called perpetrator you saw?” he asked.

Morty shrugged helplessly. “I dunno, um… a clone? Another Morty? I’m not sure.”

“Have you been in contact with any time travel devices lately?”

Morty thought briefly about time crystals. “No?” he said, deciding to err on the side of caution.

“Any suspicious persons travelling in unconventional spacecraft, ie. phone boxes or cars that look smaller on the outside than on the inside?”

Morty looked baffled. “No?”

“Any long-held vendettas against previous Ricks, or Mortys?”

“You mean… revenge?”

“Yes.”

“Not really?”

“Have you been contacted by any members of the Council of Mortys, or anyone from the Cult of the One True Morty?”

“Aw geez, I see those guys here at the Citadel all the time, but they don’t really bug me about anything.”

“Very well.” 

The Officer Rick leaned forward again and began typing on the holographic keyboard flickering on his desk.

“To protect your alibi, I’m going to have to ask you to remain here in custody until we sort this thing out,” he finally said, still typing.

“C-c-custody? Y-y-y-you mean… in jail?” Morty stammered in alarm.

“It’s for your own protection in case this person of interest is actually a version of your future-self travelling back in time to murder subsequent Ricks,” the Officer replied coolly. “You’ll be safe here and monitored at all times.”

“Aw geez, that’s… that sounds kinda extreme, don’t you think?” Morty said weakly. “I-I mean, I appreciate you uh, you wanting to keep me safe, but uhh, I-I don’t really wanna go to jail, y’know, it’s, it’s uhh—”

“Your detainment will not be uncomfortable,” the Officer Rick assured him. “We can keep you updated on the investigation as it unfolds. That’s not too bad, eh?”

“I-I guess? W-what’s gonna happen to my Rick, then? Uh, I mean… Rick C-405? He— He’s in the lobby. I hope. Still.”

“As the case concerns him, he may also be detained.”

“Aw geez, uhh… aw man. I don’t think he’d like that. Y’know, I mean, he’s you, y’know? And I know— I know how Ricks don’t like being told to do— to do stuff they, they don’t wanna do…”

“If he’s me, he understands the necessity of procedure,” said the Officer.

“Oh, uh, well. Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is set after Close Encounters of Rick-Kind, so the Citadel is a little more keen on this sorta thing by now.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone's asking the right questions, but who...?

Meanwhile, in a Seattle neighbourhood on Earth C-953, Interdimensional Janitors Ricks C-382 and C-594 portalled directly into the garage of the Smith family home. This time it was neither a code yellow or an ADBCI, but a casual DBNC.

“W-whaddya think, Richard?” said C-382. “I bet you five schmeckles it was a heart attack.”

“Don’t be crass,” C-954 muttered. He eyed the body slumped over at the counter. “Y-you’re talking about the-the domestic version of yourself. This-this could have been you, Ricardo.”

“Geez, no need to get all— get all fuckin’ Serious Sam on me,” Ricardo scoffed, with a roll of his eyes. “I’ll grab the stuff. Y-you can check on buddy there.”

Richard snorted derisively as Ricardo slouched off to collect the cardboard boxes full of odds and ends from the garage shelves. Seizure of assets was usually tied into the janitor jobs as well, no matter how broken or insignificant the technology.

“... aneurysm,” Richard mumbled to himself as he approached the body of Rick C-953. “Please let it be an aneurysm…”

With his gloves on and mask up, Richard did his best to gingerly but firmly grasp the shoulders of the corpse and tried to pry him off the counter. This Rick had died with his head facedown and arms hanging limp at his sides, as though he had passed out where he sat, without drama. That was not the part that Richard immediately noticed, however — it was how easily the body moved under his hands. Rigor mortis usually set in about four hours after a death. Notification by JERTY said that this one had been discovered less than a day ago.

“Uhh, Ricardo,” Richard mumbled, frowning puzzledly as he gently rocked the body back and forth a little, “we might have a—”

There was a strange noise as he pulled the body away from the edge of the counter, like a faint scrape that wasn't the barstool beneath the corpse. It was the last thing Richard heard before the dead Rick suddenly elbowed him in the throat, whirled around, and slammed Richard’s head into the back counter with a hand on his face.

With a startled gasp, Ricardo spun around at the sudden crash. “W-w-what the fuck?!”

The dead Rick — who was clearly not dead, and in fact looked eerily like Richard from the way he was dressed, even down to the sardonic look Richard wore often — let Richard slide the floor in a boneless heap. Then the ‘corpse’ looked up from the real Richard on the floor, slowly turned to face Ricardo, and opened its mouth.

“I love you,” it said.

————————————————

Though the Officer Rick had said detainment would be safe and comfortable, Rick C-405 disagreed strongly.

“You stupid motherfuckers!” he spat between the bars of the small cell he occupied with Morty, “I didn't even do anything, what the fuck! Lemme outta here!”

“C’mon, Rick,” Morty moaned from where he was draped over the tiny wall bed at the back of the cell. “At-at least there’s a, a window.”

“With a fucking _brick wall_ in front of it,” Rick snarled over his shoulder at him.

“I’m sorry, Rick,” Morty sighed for the tenth time. “I-I didn't think this through.”

“Yeah, thanks for dragging me into your shit,” Rick scoffed, gripping the cell bars tightly as he pressed his face between them as if he wanted to ooze through them, like jelly.

“H-hey, t-this is your shit too!” Morty protested, suddenly sitting up. “I-I’m trying to— I was trying to prevent you from getting killed!”

“Right, and the best way to keep me from dying is locking me up without my portal gun?!” Rick shouted out between the bars. The cinder block wall across the way looked unimpressed.

“I-it’s only for a little while!” Morty continued to protest. “C’mon, relax, man! I’m sure they’ll, y’know, figure something out.”

“I’m an asshole at every single level,” Rick grumbled. “Those jerks are gonna forget about us and we’re gonna rot in here.”

Morty had nothing to say to that. So long as Rick continued swearing and shouting from their cell, Morty highly doubted anyone would forget, even if they wanted to.

However, it seemed like C-405 wasn’t the only Rick yelling. Distantly from down the corridor, some other Rick’s voice was echoing frantically.

“Ha! I’m not the only poor sap stuck in the joint!” C-405 pointed out smugly. “Hey! Hey buddy!”

“Aw Rick, what are you trying to do?” Morty mumbled, slumping back against the wall. His legs dangled over the edge of the wall-bed. “N-not like he’s gonna—”

Suddenly the door slammed open, and the faint echo abruptly turned into a smattering of voices all trying to talk at once.

“Hey! You can’t go back there!”

“Fuck you!”

“No no no, fuck me, pal!”

“As if! Get-get the hell — get the hell outta my way!”

“Go— go get the damn Major already!”

“Morty C-883, I've got a goddamn bone to pick with you, y-y-you— _puto malvado!_ You, you walking jinx!”

Morty sat straight up at the sound of his dimension code being yelled down the hall. Even his Rick looked surprised.

Storming down the hall was Ricardo, or Rick C-382, recognizable by the differently-styled hair, the torn-off sleeves of his uniform lab coat, his rolled-up sleeves, not to mention the tattoos on his bare arms. This time however, Morty noticed immediately, the Janitor Rick had blood smeared all over his front and his arms, and he looked super pissed.

“You!” Ricardo snarled, stabbing a finger at Morty as he approached their cell. “You’re— you’re the common factor in all this! This is YOUR fault!”

Instinctively, Rick C-405 placed himself in front of Morty to keep the angry Janitor from getting too close, even though heavy steel bars stood between them anyway. “Hey pal, you got a problem with my Morty, you take it up with me!” he declared.

“Piss off!” Ricardo snapped at him. He then flung himself forward and seized C-405 by the lapels of his labcoat, through the bars, and gave his fellow Rick an angry wobble. “This ain't about you! That _mala suerte_ Morty over there is a, a goddamn shit magnet, he’s-he’s a fucking, a fucking _murder_ magnet, and don’t you think you— that I don’t know about your little--your little thing, or-or-or whatever fucking sinister _deal_ you've made with that-that piece of shit that wrecked my partner—”

“I’ll believe it when I see it!” C-405 snarled back.

A pair of Guard Ricks came chopping down the corridor. “All right, all right, break it up!” they shouted, grabbing Ricardo by the elbows. “C’mon, man, go through the proper channels all ready. Yeesh.”

Morty hopped off the wall-bed. “W-wait!” he shrilled. “C’mon everybody, please! Lemme— lemme talk to this guy here, okay? Please?”

“Hands off, dickholes!” Ricardo swore, trying to slap the Guards off him. “You heard the kid!”

“Rick! Cleanup guy!” Morty called out, as he edged past his own Rick to stand at the cell bars. “H-hey, settle down, okay? What happened?! What did you see?”

“It’s a doppelganger!” Ricard shouted as the Guard Ricks began towing him backwards down the hall, towards the exit. “A doppelganger, you idiot!”

Stunned, all Morty could do was watch as the Janitor was hauled back out the door. The cell block fell back into silence once more, only now more broodingly.

“...what?” C-405 looked down at Morty beside him. “What the fuck was that about?”

“I-I dunno!” Morty looked pale under his red baseball cap. “I dunno, Rick… w-what should I do?”

————————————————  
In less than an hour, both Morty and Rick C-405 were back in Rick Officer C-7104’s office, along with a blood-covered Janitor Rick C-382.

“...s-so I fucking whaled on it with a box of crap, grabbed Richard, and then portalled r-right the fuck back out,” C-382 was saying. 

“Mm-hmm. So now there’s a rogue Rick, or a doppelganger that looks like Richard C-594, running loose in dimension C-953,” the Officer said, his fingers steepled together.

“Yeah, so now my partner’s gonna be out all day with a stupid concussion, and I've still got two more jobs to do before end of today,” Ricardo went on, sneering. “And like fuck I’m going back out there, alone, with some kinda dimension-hopping, Rick-murdering alien that looks like anybody it wants to!”

“And how do you figure in all of this, Morty C-883?”

Morty, who stood between his own Rick and Ricardo, didn't stop fidgeting with his hands. “Uh, gosh, I uh,” he began hesitantly, “I only… I mean, I only just noticed it the last few times, okay? I mean, it could be killing other Ricks right now, like, Ricks that have nothing to do with me, y’know?”

“There is a notable trend in your history here,” the Officer Rick pointed out. “Let’s see here… your original Rick, C-883, died from complications wiiiith… zombies, hmm. Second Rick eaten by local fauna, not unusual… Third Rick shot by political rivals, also not usual.”

“Yeah, but…” Morty insisted, though he was uncertain of what he was insisting on, “but they died in such a lameass way, like… Arctic Naturalist Rick would never have been eaten by a, by a giant leopard seal, he-he _knows_ them like the back of his hand, that’s like, a-a school teacher getting killed by pencils or something, y’know?”

“Are you suggesting sabotage?”

“Kinda?” Morty began to sweat. “Like… like, the doppelganger showed up, and just… I dunno, I think it turned into the leopard seal, and Rick saw it, and it confused him, kinda? A-and when the Carpalians shot my third Rick, like, I saw the thing real good — and I thought I was just looking into, like, a reflective wall, like a mirror? But it was me — well, it looked like me — pulling the trigger.”

Meanwhile, Rick C-405 was looking increasingly worried, his unibrow furrowed in mild alarm, as he listened to Morty’s stuttering admittance.

“Okay, so what’s the motive here?” he suddenly said. “Why is there a doppelganger stalking Morty?”

As if they were all thinking the same thing — and they were the same person, after all — all three Ricks in the room automatically turned their gazes onto Morty’s red hat.

Morty stared helplessly at them. “What?”

————————————————

Morty sat with his Rick nearby while Lab Rick ran a number of tests on Morty’s hat. The hat was placed delicately onto a plate in what looked like an ordinary microwave box, but instead of rotating and humming, an orange light shone inside and a bunch of data popped up on holographic windows on a separate terminal. 

Lab Rick peered at the stats as they scrolled rapidly on each screen. Eventually he turned around and gave a shrug.

“I got nothin,” he said, looking between the three present Ricks, and Morty. “This is bupkiss. It’s just a shitty polyester denim baseball cap.”

“S-so, what, there’s no weird fucking pheromones on it, or a, or a hidden beacon on it that makes Morty look delicious to doppelgangers, or—”

Lab Rick held a hand up to halt C-405’s rant. “Not. A goddamn thing.”

Wordlessly, Officer Rick turned aside and stepped out of the dark, cramped little laboratory. And like C-405, Rick C-382 also did not look satisfied.

“C’mon, throw us a bone here, buddy,” he said, gesturing as though he were begging for spare change.

“Get outta my lab.” Lab Rick scowled and pointed at the exit.

Once outside again, Morty screwed his hat back on with a rueful look. “I told you guys already,” he said sullenly, “my first Rick gave me this hat. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“There’s just nothing else different about you, Morty,” C-405 sighed, though he continued to look annoyed and confused. “You’re a Morty like the rest.”

Meanwhile, Officer Rick turned on his heel. “Heading back to the station,” was all he said, and off he went.

C-382 threw up his hands. “I-I've got a date with some whiskey and some trauma to-to conveniently forget about,” he declared. “As the Canadians say, hasta la vista.”

“You’d think he’d want a shower first,” Morty murmured as the punky-looking, blood-soaked Rick stalked away.

“Priorities, Morty,” C-405 said sympathetically. “C’mon. Let’s go home.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is it! The end! This is the last chapter!!!
> 
> Also, gore and violence. Hide your eyes, cover the children.

In dimension C-405, a portal blorped into existence in the Smith family garage. The portal whirled green and yellow for a moment, and eventually Morty walked through it, followed by Rick.

Or at least, Rick’s top half made it.

There was a faint _whomm_ that didn’t sound familiar at all, followed by a sticky slurp, which caused Morty to turn around just in time to see a surprised look on Rick’s face, just before the top half of his body slid off the bottom half where it had been diagonally bisected, as though sliced clean through with the world’s sharpest cheese wire. 

The portal zapped shut again. Rick’s legs were still left behind at the Citadel, while his torso lay on the garage floor, cut so cleanly that blood only began to seep out across the concrete like an afterthought. His arms, also severed, lay on either side him.

Morty began to shiver uncontrollably as he allowed his gaze to trail up from Rick’s dismembered body up into the eyes of himself— an exact mirror copy of himself — wearing a red hat, but also holding onto what looked like an incredibly thin-bladed energy sword.

The blood drained from Morty’s face. He felt an awful tang at the back of his throat that made him want to vomit, but his mouth stayed glued shut.

The doppelganger stood absolutely still, unnaturally still. For a tense moment, both Mortys stared back at each other.

One of them moved first.

————————————————

At the Citadel Hospice, Rick C-954 finally woke up.

The first thing he registered was the dim ceiling of the recovery ward, followed by the quiet thrum and murmur of voices beyond the room. Then he notice that there were curtains on either side, and that Rick C-382 was slumped in a chair at the foot of the bed, covered in blood, and casually sipping from his flask, and watching him.

“Yo,” he belched.

Richard glared at him. “Where’s mine?” he croaked, his mouth feeling like it had been stuffed full of cotton.

Ricardo gestured at the side table. All of his effects were there: his portal gun, his Citadel lapel pin, his belt and shoulderstrap, his wallet, and last but not least, his flask. No sign of his clothes, however.

Richard reached over and plucked the flask up from the night stand with all the delicacy of his profession.

“How long was I out for…?”

“Uhh, about an hour? Two hours,” Ricardo replied, shrugging. “They-they say you’ve got a, got a mild concussion, so don’t sit up too fast,” he warned. 

Richard reached up to gingerly touch his forehead, but found some gauze bindings wrapped around his skull. A dull headache throbbed somewhere in there, but he was glad that no one saw fit to open him up, or god forbid, trepan him.

“I have no recollection,” he admitted, wincing. He uncapped his flask and carefully sipped from it, not feeling well enough for a casual quaff.

“Y-you got slammed by some-some crazy piece of shit _doppelganger,_ ” Ricardo reported, with some eyerolling at the end of it. “Apparently there’s some alien shape-shifter that uh, really w-wants a piece of that Morty we talked to back in C-402.”

“C-402…?” Richard frowned. Even frowning felt like it took effort. He was thirsty as hell.

“Yeah, you know? That Morty with the red hat? He gave you that-that snowglobe or, or whatever the fuck that was.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I remember that part,” Richard mumbled, taking another sip from his flask. The more booze to dull his aching head, the better. “Why are you covered in blood?”

“Oh, that’s yours,” Ricardo said with a dismissive wave of his flask. “Buddy there just slammed you head-first in-into the back counter there and-and-and your head hit the edge s-straight on, like, cut you right open. The human head’s full of a looootta blood, y’know.”

“I know that,” Richard muttered. “Jesus. Why the fuck was there a-a doppelganger…?”

“I told you! That thing’s got a hard-on for that Morty. D-dunno why, though.” Ricardo sipped from his flask again.

Richard fell silent. He was definitely missing the last few minutes of this encounter. He vaguely remembered showing up at the dimension to clean up a Rick who was declared DBNC, and then… nothing.

“Tell-tell me what happened,” he said, still frowning.

Ricardo sighed a long-suffering sigh and slouched further down into his seat. “We showed up at C-402,” he began in a dull, exasperated tone, “-y-you touched the body at the counter and said it— said it wasn’t dead, a-a-and then it came to life and beat the shit outta you, and then it said something absolutely awful at me that I’ll never be able to bleach outta my mind thanks to—”

“What did it say?” Richard pressed curiously.

“Huh? Oh man, don’t… don’t make me repeat it.”

“Don’t be a piece of shit, Ricardo,” Richard sneered.

“It doesn’t matter! So I threw a b-box at it, grabbed your sorry ass, and portalled outta there. End of story!”

“What did it say?” Richard insisted. 

“I said it doesn’t matter!”

“Ricardo, I swear to christ if you don’t tell me, I’ll make your life miserable—”

“Ha! Like you don’t already,” Ricardo scoffed, folding his arms like an indignant teenager.

“It’s fucking important,” Richard snarled. “Now what— did — the doppelganger — _say_?!”

Ricardo looked like he was going to explode.

“It said... “ He then mumbled the rest unintelligibly.

“Ricardo,” Richard said warningly.

“It said, _‘I love you’!_ There, are you happy?!” Ricardo spat out. “And it was — it was wearing your face, like— it looked like you, and I fucking screamed like a-a-a-a goddamn _niñita_ and—”

Even though Richard’s brain was a little rattled, things were clicking together very quickly.

“It said it… to _you?_ ” he said in a low voice. With an incredulous loft of his unibrow.

“Th-the fuck’s the matter with you?” Ricardo said irritably. “Geez, you musta--musta been rattled real good if-if you can’t goddamn remember the last two minutes of this stupid conversation.”

Richard stared at him incredulously. “There’s a shape-shifting alien,” he said slowly, “that tried to kill me…”

“Well, apparently it’s been taking out Ricks left right a-a-and center,” Ricardo went on with a wave of his hand. “It’s hunting this Morty, y’know, the, the one with the hat? Like it’s been following him around killing all his Ricks. This kid’s been through four different Ricks in, like, a-a two year period, like, he’s cursed or something, or he makes Ricks die, like-like that haunted video tape that ma-makes you die in seven days, or, or something—”

Richard meanwhile was mouthing something under his breath. _I love you…. I love you…_

“God, stop doing that,” Ricardo winced, screwing his eyes shut. “Seriously, it weirds me right the fuck out. It's b-bad enough the only ones who ever say that ssh-shit to me are crazy band groupies or crazier doppelgangers, don't- don't need you mocking me too.”

Richard carefully sat up from where he’d been propped up in bed.

“Ricardo,” he breathed, “whatever you do, don’t leave the Citadel.”

“No can do. Now that you’re-you’re outta commission, I-I gotta go clean up the-the next two jobs JERTY had lined up for us—”

“Do NOT leave the Citadel!” Richard barked. “Don’t— don’t fucking tempt it, no matter what you do!”

“Why the fuck not,” Ricardo muttered, glowering at Richard now.

Richard threw the covers off himself and pulled himself off to the edge of his bed on one side. “We gotta--we gotta save that Rick,” he said, speaking quickly now, settling his bare feet onto the cold tile floor. “That-that doppelganger is gonna kill that Rick…!”

“Which one?” Ricardo looked genuinely puzzled.

“That Rick with that hat-wearing Morty!” Richard hissed, pushing himself up to stand up. His knees however disagreed with the notion and he wobbled sideways. Forced to clutch the side of the bed for support, Richard held tightly onto the side bars of the hospital bed, waiting for the dizziness to clear from his head.

“You think it’s gonna go after him right now?” Ricardo sounded baffled. “Hey, don’t get up, _tonto_! You’re concussed!” There was a squeak as he hastily rose up from his seat.

“No, you idiot!” Richard warbled, panting now as his vision spun. “S-shit...I can’t… can’t see… Ricardo, y-y-ou gotta go to the Citadel guards and tell ‘em—”

“Way ahead of ya,” Ricardo grunted as he jogged over to grasp Richard up by one arm. “Hold on, and get the fuck back into bed, y-ya goddamn psycho.”

“T-that’s not what I meant!” Richard stammered, eyes squeezed shut as he pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead. He could taste bile at the back of his throat. “It’s you, stupid! It’s you!!”

“What,” Ricardo said, deadpan.

“It’s you!” Richard panted. “The doppelganger, Ricardo, it's-it's one of your damn cr-crazed groupies! It isn't following the kid — it’s been following _you!”_

————————————————

The Smith family garage was a disaster. The shelves along one wall had all been toppled over, their contents slashed to bits, and the workbench had long, burnt furrows striped across it. Somewhere under there was Rick’s upper torso, bleeding out and draining into that convenient dip on the right side of the garage’s concrete floor. The garage door had a Morty-shaped hole cut into it with perfect die-cut precision.

The chase had spilled out into the dining room. The table had been cut neatly in half, the chairs scattered in pieces. The living room fared no better: the walls were slashed left and right, the couch had exploded into burnt puffs of synthetic fluff and upholstery, though the coffee table was surprisingly in one piece. Morty had finally been cornered with the patio door to his right, and the fallen, smashed television set fritzing and smoking between himself and the other Morty.

“You’re not him,” said the other Morty, in Morty’s own voice.

“Y-y-you’re damn right I’m not!” Morty squeaked, his voice cracking out of sheer distress. “W-who the hell are you a-a-a-and what do you want?!

“Him,” said the doppelganger Morty as it began to slowly advance, its energy-blade hissing and sparking where dust from their hubris gently fell onto it. 

“You killed him!” Morty roared. “YOU _killed_ him!”

Without a shift in its expression, the doppelganger lashed out with its glowing sword but Morty was not there — he had executed a neat dive-roll, and was now throwing the patio doors open.

Even as Morty dashed outside, the doppelganger followed, its face perfectly placid as it sprinted out after him. Morty seized the outdoor barbecue and, using centrifugal force, swung it around to place it squarely between him and his foe. The doppelganger cut the entire barbecue in half with a high-energy whomm and a sizzle, but by then, Morty had lifted a slim, metal poker from the barbecue’s tool rack. 

“You Rick-murdering motherfucker!” Morty shrieked, and with absolute disregard for the energy sword, deked around the falling halves of the barbecue and swung the poker down from above.

The cast iron poker made a satisfyingly meaty thud as the length of it rebounded off the side of the doppelganger’s head. Its red ballcap fell off from the force, its neck cracking sideways, and without giving it a chance to recover, Morty brought the poker round again, this time slamming it hard straight down between the neck and shoulder. 

“You— Rick— murdering— son— of a bitch—!” Morty screamed as he continued to bring the heavy iron poker down again and again. “You killed him— you _killed_ — him!! You— _killed_ — ALL— MY— RICKS—”

Pink blood began to fly off the end of the iron poker, but still Morty did not stop. He smashed in the doppelganger’s head, watching his own face split and crumple under the onslaught of blows. Tears blurred Morty’s vision while he continued railing on that face, _his_ face, that somehow managed to stare back up at him despite the fluorescent pink gore billowing up from between the cracks of its face like stuffing out of a doll. Teeth scattered like chiclets, tossed up by the flailing iron poker, and thin pink mucous spattered all over the concrete patio floor with every wet smack and crunch.

Time disappeared. All Morty could think about was the string of Ricks that he’d tried to love, that he’d fully loved, from his original Rick who died saving his life, to the Rick that taught him how to love nature, to the Rick who’d shown him how to ruin a perfectly good ceasefire negotiation, to his current, now last Rick, who had been just a normal Rick —

But to Morty, every Rick had been his hero. Every Rick who had touched his life had been cursed to die untimely, grisly deaths, and it made Morty furious to know, and to see, just how fallible his heroes were. The smartest, fastest, strongest role models in his life had been felled like ordinary people, like rebels, like dinner — and Morty felt robbed, his illusions of his super-smart, super-special grandpa shattered like… 

He wasn't even aware of the firm hand that caught his flailing arm. The doppelganger had been reduced to a drab, pink mush that was now leaking across the pavement and into the grass. Morty had been too busy shrieking to notice that Officer Rick C-7104 was now gently escorting him away from the body, and that Rick C-382 had also shown up to conveniently dispose of the body, much to his dismay. 

Only after Morty had been drawn away from the mess and back into the house, out of the ruined living room and into the kitchen, did the Officer Rick try to console him.

“Hey,” he said softly, placing his gloved hands upon the boy’s shoulders. “Hey, kid. You’re okay. You’re okay…”

“I’m not okay!” Morty sobbed, raising his pink-stained hands to palm at the tears streaking down his face. “I’m not okay! My Rick is dead! _Again!”_

“Hey, settle down. Your grandpa’s still here, Morty. I’m your grandfather.”

“No you’re not—!”

“We’re all your grandfather,” the Officer Rick said again, this time more firmly. “You have an infinite number of grandpas, Morty. And I’m pretty sure that a good number of them love you.”

“R-Ricks… d-don’t…”

“Yeah, ha, that’s a lie we tell ourselves,” the Officer said, giving Morty a firm little shake. “You don’t think Ricks feel your absence when we lose you? For all the times a Morty falls into a pit trap and never gets back out, or a Morty who goes to sleep at night and never wakes up, or a Morty who gets kidnapped and shot because his grandpa made a foolish mistake…”

Morty hiccuped convulsively, sniffing as he wiped his nose with his wrist.

“You don’t think we’re afraid to get close because we know you’re replaceable?” said the Officer.

Morty stared at him, shaking, red-eyed, broken.

“Morty, Morty… we’re replaceable too. Don’t you know that?”

Morty hiccuped again. “I… I know…” he began, miserably.

“It’s the only promise we Ricks will ever make for you,” the Officer went on, his voice still soft. “We’re gonna do all kinds of wonderful things, Morty. Just you and me, Morty. The outside world is our enemy, Morty…”

“...w-we’re the only… the only friends we’ve got,” Morty chanted hesitantly along with him, his voice watery, “It’s just… just Rick and Morty…”

“Rick and Morty running around, all day long, forever,” the Officer Rick encouraged.

“...all a hundred— a hundred days Rick and Morty, over and… and over, adventures f-for a hundred years, forever and ever…” Morty hiccuped, as fresh tears brimmed.

“Because we know there is an infinite number of us,” the Officer Rick told him. “So you will never run out of Ricks to be your grandpa. Okay?”

Morty could not stop staring at this man, this exact copy of his grandfather, except in a Citadel uniform and a white hat. It was strange to say it, but this man was an authentic copy and not some pink, pulpy, lovesick doppelganger. A genuine copy. To Morty, it felt right.

“Can… can you be my grandpa…?” Morty said in a small voice, suddenly feeling very tiny himself.

“No,” said the Officer.

Morty’s eyes glistened pleadingly.

The Officer stared at him stonily now. “Fuck,” he finally said. “Fuck. No. Don’t do this to me.”

“Please? I… I don’t… I can’t…”

“Come on. You have an entire Citadel, an infinite number of Ricks on the finite curve to choose from.”

“I need him _now_ , I _want_ my grandpa,” Morty blubbered, mashing his hands into his wet eyes again.

Inwardly, the Officer panicked. If he continued refusing, then he would be a liar then, wouldn’t he? All that talk about Rick and Morty adventures dot com, forever and ever, would be complete bullshit if he said no, right?

“Okay, okay, jesus christ,” the Officer growled, lifting his hands off Morty’s shivering shoulders. “Stop… stop being such a baby. Y-you’re a man now.”

“You’re always so mean to me, Rick,” Morty sniffled, but he smiled weakly as he said it.

The Officer Rick took the brim of Morty’s hat and tugged it down over Morty’s face.

 

THE ENDDDDD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for context: At her mother's funeral, a young woman spots a man whom she does not recognize but she instantly falls in love with him. A week later, she kills her twin sister. Why?
> 
> Normal folks are puzzled and can't make sense of it. However, psychopaths/sociopaths supposedly know the answer straight away: the woman was hoping the man would show up to the next funeral. Make of that what you will!
> 
> SO!! Thanks for reading! Thanks for reading, guys!!!!
> 
> And thanks again to [@stanchez-sloppy-seconds](http://archiveofourown.org/users/stanchezsloppyseconds) for giving her Janitors Richard and Ricardo the spice that makes them, them, and also READ HER FICS read ALL HER FICS coz she's just gonna pump out stanchez stuff non-stop for a hundred days forever and ever Rick and Stan .com forever and ever
> 
> Next up: 'Hat' Morty earns the 'Scrappy' moniker, and nobody is surprised.


End file.
